Driving advice

[wanda]

Merry Christmas everyone.

I was looking at some track videos and wondered. If you ever ought to be driving and the back end gives way, what is the best way to recover it?

Could it be:

(1) Floor it and fight with the steering wheel?

(2) Hit the brakes?

(3) Or let go of the gas and brakes and purely concentrate on steering?

 

[gordiniseb]

If its front wheel drive, always the loud pedal although careful application rather than 'floor it'. Never ever the brakes though.

 

[GhostZ]

depends what car cause if you go to crazy with the Twingo RS in a corner and the ESP is on it will brake the front wheels individually (left or right) to counter it (simulating this yourself is not
possible ... )

but if everything is off well do like drifters do slowly counter steer to keep the front wheels pointing the direction where you want to go and like above careful throttle work can do wonders

and out of personal experience on a track day most of the times you will get more understeer with FF then oversteer (this mostly happened for me on wet )

and if your unsure about yourself and want to somewhat train for it roundabouts is your answer
slowly increase your speed while on it (ESP disabled ofcourse) and when it lets go you can try and "counter" it

hope this makes a bit sense , it is sometimes hard to explain at the exact time when stuff goes wrong how to explain it afterwards ....

 

[BlackTwingo-i]

I can relate to this on a couple occasions..
Some have failed, some haven't..
All depends on what speed you loose it at and what the road surface is like i.e. Wet, dry, stoney, uneven..

Lost the back end on some country roads quite drastically about a week ago, it was damp, i counter steered and used a little bit of acceleration and came out fine, but then you have to instantly switch back the steering to the opposite way, or you will just oversteer the other way..

It's more an instinct thing than anything.. You can't plan what you're gonna do, you just do it haha

 

[oscar]

counteracting understeer in a FWD car is different in any car due to suspension and chassis setups, tyre grips and pressures, road surface, weather conditions car weights etc. with snap oversteer the best way to correct it is by modulating the accelerator and turning the wheels into the intended direction, with the weight transfer and all this will pull the car forwards and straighten it. opposite lock plus throttle modulation is always the best way to correct an oversteer situation in my oppinion. you'll probably only ever find yourself in this position if you enter a corner too fast, pull of the accelerator and the back steps out. you can also vary the rear pressures in the tyres to help dial this out but the prime cause of it is the transfer of weight under acceleration from back to front. all the same good luck with your trackdays, you'll have a barrel of laughs

 

[singlespeed]

If you have ever nearly thrown yourself over the handlebars of a pushbike by grabbing too much front brake, you can appreciate weight shift and get an idea of how much grip the rear end looses when the rear tyres are in the air :? If you were good, you would modulate the brake to keep the back end on the road or bring it back down slowly... Grabbing some more is silly and completely releasing the brake could leave you walking funny for a while :lol: The front brakes are much more effective as the weight shift puts more weight onto the front wheels, allowing them to generate a much higher braking force before the tyre starts to skid.

With a certain amount you weight on a tyre, it can generate a certain amount of grip. Using this grip for cornering, you will get a maximum speed before the tyre starts to slip. Quickly letting off the power or braking will shift some weight forwards, leaving less grip for the rears, hence the tendency to spin.

So you can see options 2and 3 won't be the best way to recover! Although, if there's not enough room to catch it, 2 may be the least expensive or painful option.